WATTS, ISAAC (1674-1748), English theologian and hymn writer, son of a clothier, was born at Southampton on July 17, 1674. The father, who afterwards had a boarding-school at Southampton, also wrote poetry, and a number of his pieces were included by mistake in vol. i. of the son's Posthumous Works. Isaac Watts studied at the Nonconformist academy, Stoke Newington, London. On leaving the academy he spent over two years at home, and began to write his hymns. In the autumn of 1696 he became tutor in the family of Sir John Hartopp at Stoke Newington, where he probably prepared the materials of his two educational works-Logick, or the Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth ( 725 ) , and The Know ledge of the Heavens and the Earth made easy, or the First Prin ciples of Geography and Astronomy Explained (1726). In his twenty-fourth year Watts became assistant pastor of the Inde pendent congregation in Mark Lane, London, and two years later he succeeded as sole pastor. In 1712 he went to live with Sir Thomas Abney of Abney Park.
Watts preached only occasionally, devoting his leisure chiefly to the writing of hymns (see HYMNS), the preparation of his sermons for publication, and the composition of theological work. In 1706 appeared his Horae Lyricae, of which an edition with memoir by Robert Southey forms vol. ix. of Sacred Classics (1834); in 5707 a volume of Hymns; in 1719 The Psalms of David; and in 1720 Divine and Moral Songs for Children. His
Psalms are free paraphrases, rather than metrical versions, and some of them ("0 God, our help in ages past," for instance) are amongst the most famous hymns in the language. Isaac Watts died on Nov. 25,1748, and was buried at Bunhill Fields.
Among the theological treatises of Watts, which are far from con ventional orthodoxy, are: Doctrine of the Trinity (1722) ; Essay on the Freedom of the Will (1732) ; and Useful and Important Questions concerning Jesus, the Son of God (1746). He was also the author of a variety of miscellaneous treatises. His Posthumous Works appeared in 1773, and a further instalment of them in 1779. The Works of . . . Isaac Watts (6 vols.), edited by Dr. Jennings and Dr. Doddridge, with a memoir compiled by G. Burder, appeared in 1810-1811. His poetical works were included in Johnson's English Poets, where they were accompanied by a Life, and they appear in subsequent similar collections. See also Thomas Milner, The Life, Times and Correspond ence of Isaac Watts (1834) ; and T. Wright, Isaac Watts and Con temporary Hymn Writers (1914). His Letters 1730-1747 are printed in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Hist. Soc., Series 2, vols. ix. and xii. (1895-99).